


The Touch of the Sun

by fennelseed



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Confessions, First Time, Frottage, Getting Together, M/M, Poignant, Pre-Quest, Secrets, Swimming, The Shire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:08:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29160192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fennelseed/pseuds/fennelseed
Summary: [Reposting from 2004 or thereabouts. Eek, I was so YOUNG!]On a hot summer day shortly before setting off on the quest, Sam shares a guilty secret or two.
Relationships: Frodo Baggins/Sam Gamgee
Comments: 15
Kudos: 33





	The Touch of the Sun

It never felt right, spying and reporting on Mr. Frodo, even when I knew it was for his own good. Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin, they're clever ones, and they knew something was up. Who better to find out than me?--that's how they put it. I accepted because I didn't want no one else taking that job, someone who doesn't love him like I do, and who would only do it for the fun of making mischief and being nosy. But it still felt wrong, because at some level that's all I was doing; and Frodo...well, he's sacred territory, like. He's not someone I should play tricks on. He's the one hobbit in the world to make my stomach fall down to my feet when I think of crossing him--or caressing him, for that matter, but no one needs know that.

So why would I do it? Why would I tell his secrets back to his own kin? Because I was afraid for him; and if he left the Shire I wouldn't want to live here no more neither. If it had to be done, finding out why he was behaving as strange as he was, then I wanted to be the one to do it. I wanted to be the first to know, and I wanted to protect him and help him.

I thought the game was all up, when Mr. Gandalf found me listening at that window, and Mr. Frodo seemed to get stern with me. But out of some miracle, it wasn't up at all. In fact I was suddenly in on his secret with him, and was to come along on his journey to Rivendell. Rivendell! Me! I near fainted when they said that.

After that, the only thing Mr. Frodo didn't know was that I had been sending reports back to his cousins. It wasn't much, compared to the evil lord and the Ring and the mission we had to do, but I still felt a bit wrong about it. Well, soon he'd find out. We'd go to Buckland, and Merry and Pippin would let the cat out of the bag. So during that summer I mostly worried about the journey, and how to prepare us both, and how to keep the secret we shared.

He had put it about that he was picking up and moving to Buckland, to be near his kin. Selling Bag End, he claimed; and taking me along, to do for him. It was probably also wrong to feel the ache I did, when I thought about being his servant that way, in a house far from my family, where it'd be just me and him. I nearly wished that was what we were doing. I'd have given up seeing the Elves to be in that position, I sometimes thought, and knowing it was just a lie felt awful cruel.

Still, he asked me along, didn't he? He trusted me with so much, and took me into the smial every few nights that summer to go over details and plans. That was still a privilege for the likes of me. Wasn't it?

That's what I was thinking about, one afternoon when he came out of Bag End into the garden and found me.

"Whew! Stifling today," he said. "I thought I was glad to see so much sun, but this is just broiling."

I could have dithered about how the four o'clocks and nasturtiums actually were liking the sun and the heat quite well, but that weren't the point and I knew it.

"Let's go out to the creek," he said. "I'll explain to you about the latest with Aunt Lobelia. And I'll get some bathing done, if it turns out not to be significantly cooler in the shade."

It wasn't much cooler in the shade, as it happened, it being one of those days with just no breeze at all. So Mr. Frodo stripped down and jumped into the pool in the wide, flat part of the creek, naked as the day he was born, while I sat nearby against a tree, out of the sun. I was feeling uneasy: I never trusted water much deeper than my knees, and to have him there naked in front of me wasn't making me any calmer. It wasn't a view I often got to see, and it seemed like every time I saw it, it hit me stronger.

Luckily the water covered him to the chest while he was explaining to me how his aunt would take possession of Bag End, and bring along Mr. Lotho. I mightn't have been able to remember all he said, otherwise. It didn't matter much anyhow, as Mr. Frodo didn't intend to let her keep Bag End for good; but it was important that I be able to keep our story straight.

"By that time I suppose we'll be nearly to Rivendell," he said, toward the end of his story. He was swimming back and forth, his curly hair all soaked and dripping. The sun flashed off the moving water, nearly blinding me. He swam nearer, and rested his arms and chin on the willow roots that stuck into the creek. "Aren't you excited at all?" he asked.

I think I went red in the face at that question, though I realized a second later that he meant nothing inappropriate by it. "About Rivendell?" I said. "Aye, sure. Course I am."

"You seem pensive," he said. When I didn't answer that, he added, "I know it's a big change for you, going all that way, with an item you know to be very dangerous and valuable."

"I'd rather be with you than sit at home and worry about you, sir," I answered. For some reason, I couldn't look him in the eye while I said that. I played with a willow leaf on my knee instead.

There was a slick sound of falling water, and when I looked up he was pulling himself out of the creek, cascading little rivers everywhere. He cast himself down on his back beside me, in the sun that was creeping up onto my shady spot. He sighed, sounding contented, and closed his eyes against the brightness. "The sun doesn't feel bad at all, now," he said. "That creek was awfully brisk."

I put out one hand to touch the cold drops that had splashed from his skin onto the grass beside me. I wouldn't have dared touch his body, much as I wanted to.

He arranged himself more comfortably on the ground, seemingly without a care that he was exposed for all the world to see. I tried not to look there, but I couldn't help it; just like when you tell yourself not to think of spooks while you're walking through a dark forest at night, so of course right away you think of spooks. He was a handful of years older than me, but I had more hair on my chest than he did by a fair margin, and more muscle too, but that was to be expected when you hauled stuff around as much as I did. As for down below...my breath hitched with a thrill, and I made myself look away. From what I'd seen, we were about equal down there, in terms of hair and size both, though I was wheat-colored where he was dark. Not that he'd know that. I was keeping every stitch on, and always had in his presence, as a proper servant ought.

"You wouldn't really have moved to Buckland with me, would you?" he asked. "If we were truly going to do that?" He sounded solemn, which was strange from a relaxed naked hobbit with his eyes closed in the sunshine.

It was the question I'd always wanted to answer, so I don't know why I flubbed it up like I did. "I would if you wanted me to, sir," I said.

He frowned a little, and still didn't open his eyes. "Just if I wanted you to? You can speak for yourself, you know. I'd understand if you wouldn't want to leave your brothers and sisters."

I slapped the willow leaf against my knee, nervous that I might say the wrong thing. Why was he asking, anyhow? "You're a fine hobbit to work for," I said, like a fool. "Course I'd want to come along."

Now he opened his eyes, held up one arm to shade them, and looked straight at me. He seemed a bit amused, and also irritated. "I should think after all this time, you'd consider me slightly more than just your employer," he said.

At that I could only grin bashfully and turn my eyes to the willow roots, my tongue all twisted up. "Reckon I do," I mumbled. He always did that, my Frodo did, blurring the lines between master and servant, at least when it came to us two. It made me nervous every time, for I didn't know how to answer; but it also made me happy, gave me something to think about during those long hours of work.

"After all," he went on, stretching his arms over his head, "we're partners in deceit, to say the very least."

"That we are," I sighed. And I almost spilled the whole tale for him right there, about reporting back to Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin. I wanted him to know. I wanted to have something new to share with him, wanted there to be no secrets between us. But I was too ashamed to speak of it. I threw aside the leaf, which I had creased up into a broken mess anyway, and picked a big white clover blossom from the ground.

"I'm frightened, Sam," Mr. Frodo said then, in a low voice. I looked over, surprised. He had turned his head aside, and seemed to be looking at the ground under my feet. "I worry that it isn't safe, what we're about to do. Even Gandalf seemed worried. Where is he? Why hasn't he returned?"

I swallowed, and reached out and tapped his palm with the clover. "I can't know that. But that's why I'm coming with you: to keep you from worrying, as best I can."

He smiled a little, and closed his fingers around the clover. "I liked what you said, about not wanting to sit at home and fret about me. I'd prefer to have you along, as well."

Looking at his eyes then, which had lifted to mine, I could almost forget that the rest of him was naked. He was a stunner, he was, in face as well as everywhere else. "Thank you, sir," I managed to say. And his smile stretched, and he took hold of my fingers and gave them a kiss. I felt a kind of joy wash right through me.

He let go of me as if what he'd done was the most natural thing in the world, and wriggled down against the turf, resettling himself in the sun. I noticed he had captured my clover blossom: he was now holding it above his face and looking at it. "You can eat these, can't you?" he asked.

"Aye. They taste a bit like honey."

He lowered it till the little tube-shaped petals touched his lips, and then tugged one off in his front teeth. Watching, I found I was licking my own lips. He chewed thoughtfully on the petal, then brightened and looked at me with a laugh. "It does! Well, now we know one thing we'll eat if we get lost in the forest."

"Only could do in summer, like this. Clover don't bloom all year."

"Mm," he sighed. He plucked loose another tiny petal and chewed on it. "It's really quite a glorious day. Seems a shame to go traveling away from a place like this, when it's so good to us."

"We'll come back, sir. I'm sure of it."

"You do make me feel better about it all, Sam." He settled one hand behind his head, and with the other he trailed the clover down his chin and onto his chest. There he circled it around a pink-brown nipple. I had to swallow again; and, dearie me, I was getting hard. This wouldn't do, not in his presence.

"I'm glad," I whispered.

He lifted those eyes to me, and then it seemed like he saw right through me, saw me looking at him like that. For, keeping his gaze fixed on my face, he slid that clover down further, meandering on his belly; and when I risked a glance there, it looked like maybe he was getting a bit bigger too. "Would you have moved with me?" he asked, very serious and quiet. "Really?"

I nodded, held in a kind of panic and delight all at once. I was breathing faster than usual, and he's no fool; he must have seen that.

He lowered his eyes to the clover, and we both watched as he brought it all the way down to the forbidden place between his legs, and dragged it from the base to the tip. He was sticking out now, definitely not soft, and he paused a moment to gather all that flesh up in his hand and settle it higher, so the hardness was lying along his belly. He then swept the clover along it, up and down, and chuckled quietly, like this was something innocent and ordinary he was doing in front of me.

I thought I might burst out of my clothes, I was so hard.

He looked at me again, and carefully took his free arm from behind his head, and reached out to draw a fingertip down my temple. "You're sweating," he said. "Don't you want to get in the water?"

Now, I'm no fool neither, at least not all the time, and I knew he wasn't just asking if I wanted to go bathing. Unless I was misunderstanding, he was asking if I would take off my clothes.

This went far beyond those master-servant lines that were blurred already. I knew what my Gaffer would tell me: I should tell Mr. Frodo that a splash of water on my face and hands would do fine to cool me off, thank you sir; and then remind him that the sun was awful strong today, and offer to fetch him his clothes so he wouldn't get burned.

But I'm not my Gaffer, and he wasn't there to see us. No one was.

"I could do that," I said.

Mr. Frodo smiled, and tactfully turned his face to the sky while I started fumbling with my shirt buttons. Still dragging that flower around his hip-bones, he said, "It's a lovely day to lounge about naked on the creekbank. You shan't regret it."

My under-linens were the last thing I took off, and when I got them down it was clear to see the effect he had on me. But I kept my back to him so he wouldn't know just yet--I was too shy, even though it wasn't fair of me, what with him being naked and hard right there for me to see. I walked fast into the stream till it reached my waist, and only then did I turn about to have another look at him. He was still gazing up at the blue sky, twirling the clover in his fingers. I cupped the chilly water in my hands and dumped it over my sweating head, glad for the cold shiver it gave me. It really was a roasting hot day, and it did feel nice getting in that creek.

"Heavenly, isn't it?" Frodo called.

"That it is, sir," I called back. I started to think perhaps I'd got the situation wrong just now. Maybe he was just one of those folk who's so comfortable in his own skin that it didn't even embarrass him when he happened to get hard in front of someone; he could just adjust it so it lay better, and go right on having a conversation. I supposed it was possible, though I couldn't imagine being that way myself.

But when I next looked up, he was watching me. He took another nibble off that clover, and stretched out one of his feet, curling his toes. "When you start getting cold, come lie up here," he suggested. "There's plenty of clover for us both to graze upon."

I chuckled, all nervous and giddy again. "I will, sir." I quickly ducked down in the water to give my chest and shoulders a good wash-off, and dunked my head under for a second as well. If I was to be lying close to him in naught but my skin, I didn't want to smell like stale sweat.

But what did that mean, "come lie up here"? Lie beside him and take a nap, like ordinary friends on a lazy summer day? Or lay hands on each other, something I'd never done with anyone, and had only dreamed about?

The thought of that last idea made me hard again, in spite of the cold water that had shrunk me for a few minutes. But now I was shivering and couldn't stay in the creek all day, and anyway he was waiting for me to join him, and a glance showed he was still hard too, thanks to the way he kept giving himself a brush now and then with that blossom.

I didn't know what would happen. I just did what seemed the smartest thing at the moment: I got out of the water, spread my shirt on the ground, and lay down on my front beside him, in the sun. I'm pretty sure he stole a glance at me before I got down, and I'm pretty sure he saw I was excited, but he didn't say nothing about it.

"That's better, isn't it?" he murmured.

"Indeed, sir." I folded my arms to make a pillow for my head, and peeked over at him.

Squinting against the sun, he looked at me, and held out the clover, like he was offering me to take a bite. I blinked. He'd just been touching that thing all over his bare body, so I knew that when I opened my mouth and bit off a couple of the little petals, I was sending him a certain message. But I did it anyway, and looked straight at his eyes while I chewed that sweet green taste.

He smiled. With a contented sigh, he closed his eyes again. "How good you make me feel."

I slipped one hand loose and touched his hand, lying open on the ground beside me. "You make me feel that good, as well," I whispered.

His hand curled round mine. "Sam, my love," he murmured, and he rolled to his side so he could kiss my wet fingers, again. "I'm so glad you're coming with me."

"I'd never have let you go alone," I said, and I kissed his hand back, every knuckle, every calloused spot from where he held quills too long. Then I settled my head on my arm, and started sliding my fingers between his, exploring all the nooks and soft places. For the next few minutes that's all we did, lying there with our eyes closed, playing with each other's hand. We squeezed and twined them around, flexing and pressing, my finger probing the center of his palm, his thumb rubbing the back of my hand, nails scraping down to wrists and back up again. It was getting what you might call highly suggestive, and though I was warm and sleepy from lying there with the sun on my back, I was also getting awfully worked up. I could feel the pressure down there, lodged hot between my belly and that shirt on the ground.

Frodo whimpered like he was begging me for something, and when I opened my eyes and shifted my head I could see then what he was doing with his other hand: sliding that clover up and down himself.

I made a similar kind of sound. Still not quite knowing what I was doing, I leaned over and kissed him right on the lips.

That seemed to be the answer. He made a groan like relief, and opened his mouth to me. He tasted like clover sap inside, and something warmer. "I love you," I whispered into his lips, the words tumbling out of me. "Loved you for ages."

"Ah, then I'm not just your employer?" he said, with a grin.

"Hardly." I took hold of one of his long fingers, and rubbed it up and down while I kissed him again, well aware of what the motion felt like.

He was aware of it too, seemingly. Blue normally is a color you associate with things cool, like water or ice, but in his eyes right then it was blazing hot, same as that summer sky. "I've scarcely done this with anyone," he admitted. "And never anyone I considered a servant. Only with people I...I loved. Like you."

Someday, I figured, I'd ask him who else he'd done these things with, but he deserved to have some secrets I didn't dig into for now. Anyhow, right then the important thing was what he planned to do with me. "What would you like?" I asked, anxious that I wouldn't know how. "I've never...I mean, I want to do anything you like, but I've only kissed folk..."

"Will you touch me?" he breathed.

"Oh, goodness yes." I turned up onto my side so I could scoot closer to him and settle a hand on his warm waist. He could see me for sure, now, hard and aching as I was.

While I was getting up the courage to draw my hand to where it should go, he looked down at me and set the example himself. He brought that clover blossom right across and touched me there with it. It tickled, and I twitched and laughed, but it felt wondrous good, too. That one bit of me had got so sensitive I could hardly believe it. Even playing about with myself I didn't usually ever get to this kind of fever pitch.

"How's that feel, Sam?" he asked, running the flower up and down it.

I think all I did was groan in answer, and set to kissing his neck. "Makes it so it's all I can think about," I told him.

"Likewise. Please," he entreated, "touch me."

My hand that had been squeezing his very fine thigh moved a bit, and found him--and, oh, how hot he felt, and near as hard as stone.

That whimpering sound came from his throat again, and his hips started moving under my hand. "That's good," he whispered. "Good."

I felt I would die on the spot if I didn't get stroked like that as well, but I didn't want to interrupt what I was doing for him neither. So I rolled him onto his back and climbed onto him, sitting astride him so our private parts were right up against each other, and I took us both into my hand.

He was watching, and breathing fast through his ruby-red lips. He reached down to help out, wrapping his hand around us too. Hot blazing blue eyes fixed down there, he said it again: "That's good...that's good, Sam..."

The tip of him was purplish, and shiny in the sun, and mine was smeared with wet, which didn't all come from the creek. I couldn't keep still while we stroked; I was pushing and writhing, and he was starting to moan and gasp. Both our hands kept going, faster and faster. Then like a tiny fountain his seed jetted up and spilled down over us both, while he panted and let his head fall back; and, ah, feeling that go running warm and slick down me, how could I keep from coming right after him?

I reeled and toppled down alongside him when we were all through, and he put his arms around me and we lay still, not making a move to wipe ourselves off. I don't know about him, but it felt good to have that wetness painted onto me there, like we'd exchanged something important and ought to wear it for a while. Anyway, it wasn't going to get cold and uncomfortable, on a warm day like this. The sun would see to it.

After a while, he sighed. I lifted my head, anxious, and asked him, "Did I do all right, sir? Was that...what you wanted?"

"Oh, that was definitely what I wanted," he chuckled. He caught my ear and tugged me down and kissed me. "And you did wonderfully."

I was satisfied with that, and settled down and hugged him again.

"It frightens me that I might have left alone," Frodo said. He spoke very soft, but with my ear pressed to his throat I could hear every word. "If Gandalf hadn't caught you that day...perhaps I wouldn't have realized how important you were to me, until it was too late. I don't always realize these things when I should, you know. Before Bilbo left, I didn't...I didn't realize..." He was whispering by then.

I hugged him tighter, and told him, "I would have found some way to tag along. In fact..." I turned my face against his smooth chest. "I was already looking for a way. I weren't just out there by accident, when Mr. Gandalf caught me. I was listening." I paused to see if he'd say anything, but he was waiting for me to go on. He was still running his hand slowly back and forth on my shoulders, which I figured was a good sign. "I hope you won't be angry," I said. "But folk were saying you were thinking on leaving, and me and Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin, we were worried and didn't want nothing to happen to you, and so I agreed I'd keep an eye out, see if I could learn what you were up to."

I felt him shake a bit, and I looked up, dreading I would see some kind of bitterness on his face. But he was grinning--that was a laugh I'd felt. "You thought I'd be angry?" he said. "For caring?"

"Well, it weren't my place," I mumbled. "And I was sending reports back to your cousins, too, on what I found." I told him that, almost hoping he'd get angry. I just had to get it out there and bring on the worst.

"Oh, dear," he sighed. "Now that, you see, was unfortunate. For they'll insist on coming with us, and how often, Sam dear, do you think we'll be able to do things like this, with such company?"

"I didn't know we'd be doing things like this!"

"I know. I'm only teasing." He pulled me down and hooked his legs around me, then rolled us so I was on my back and he was on top of me. "Frankly, I'm shocked I had the nerve to initiate it," he added. "Goodness knows I've thought of it, but it always seemed the sort of thing that could only happen in one's darkest dreams."

"Not out in the bright sun like this," I agreed. "What gave you the nerve?"

"I don't know. Perhaps it was the sun itself. Making it so I would go mad if I didn't take all my clothes off," he laughed. Then his laugh quieted into a smile, as he looked down at me. "More likely it was you," he said. "Something in your eyes. I suddenly got the strangest notion such a move wouldn't go amiss."

"You were right, at that," I said.

He chuckled and rested his cheek on my shoulder. "Sam. Dear, dear Sam." The words didn't mean nothing much, perhaps, but the way he said them, they became the finest anyone had ever spoken to me. After we'd lain there sleepily for a few minutes, he stirred, and started playing his fingers against my chest. "Since you've delivered this awful news to me, that my cousins shall be intruding upon our journey for longer than expected," he said, "would you oblige me by doing...what we just did...again? To make up for time we shan't have in the future...as it were?"

"Fine by me," I said--like he couldn't already tell I wanted to. Couldn't hide much from him, pressed body to body, naked like that. Which was the way I wanted to be for the rest of my life, if possible.

"One thing," he murmured, as he kissed my face. "You'll not tell Merry and Pippin about this, will you?"

"Sir! No!" I answered, offended he'd even think it.

He shook with laughter then, and I understood and relaxed even before he spoke. "I was joking," he assured. "Joking. I know you wouldn't. I can trust you to the ends of the earth. Or at least as far as Rivendell."

"You were right the first time." I leaned up and gave him another kiss. "Ends of the earth."

Even then, while we lay touching each other in the summer sun, I thought perhaps this journey was going to be difficult, was going to hurt one or both of us. But it didn't quite seem possible, on such a bright and happy day. And even if it were going to be terrible, it just made me want to laugh the louder and love him the better, so I'd have the memory to carry in my mind, and cheer me up on the worst of the dark days. For surely nothing could do a better job of that than the Shire on a fine afternoon, with a cool creek for bathing, the sun on my skin, and my Frodo naked and smiling just for me.


End file.
